I was excited about today because I could actually use a recipe that requires a marinating time of over four hours. Since today was the second day of summer, I went with an island theme, picking out the Kingston Jerk Chicken on page 241 and to go along with it, the Sweet Potatoes With Cinnamon Butter on page 342. This morning (during halftime of the first World Cup games) I set about making the paste for the chicken.
I did make some substitutions that I probably should make mention of in the interest of what I am doing. The first substition was to replace the habenero with a serrano pepper. As much as I like spicy food, the habenero just has a flavor that I really don't prefer. That, and it's f'n hot. Second, I replaced canola oil with olive oil. I recently acquired some nice Greek olive oil from my friend, Sean, and was eager to use it. Upon making the paste in my food processor, I used a large bowl to cover all parts of the chicken. There was no getting around it; I had to get a little messy. The olive oil, I must say, worked quite well. It retained its flavor amongst all of the other ingredients, which in a jerk sauce/marinade is quite a feat. I would like to take a minute to say that within the last year I have discovered that I like Greek olive oil much more than the Italian varieties. The stuff from The Boot can be too delicate and easily overwhelmed by other ingredients. Sometimes it just downright lacks actual flavor. The Greek olive oils have a much more interesting flavor and make the dishes you cook all the more interesting.
I set the chicken parts in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, and turned the bag about every two hours during the course of the day. When it came time to actually cook dinner this evening, I prepared the potatoes.
With everything in order, I needed to make my plan of attack. I had The Forge up and ready to go, and I read through the instructions for both recipes a couple of times.
If you look in the lower left-hand corner, you can actually see my plan written out.
I don't expect you to make much of my chicken scratchings, but I still think it's a good idea to set your course of events in writing when you have a lot going on. It really helps me remain calm when there is a lot going on, and things tend to go better when I am calm. The first thing to come off the grill was the chicken.
Then came the sweet potatoes six minutes later. This allowed the chicken to rest (juices redistribute) while the potatoes finished.
Finally, it was time to plate and go about eating my meal. I gave the potatoes and my bread (more on that later) a final basting of cinnamon butter, and I was ready to go!
I liked this recipe because it was the first time I tried cooking a whole chicken that was cut into parts. To be honest, I would combine this recipe with the Chicken Under Bricks technique and cook it whole instead of in parts. Tonight I learned that when Weber says to cook for five to ten minutes over direct heat at the end to crisp up the skin that I should lean towards the shorter end of the time spectrum. There was a little too much carbon for my liking. Luckily, it was the paste that burned, and the chicken underneath was pust plain perfect. The sweet potatoes would have been terrific, but next time I will either cut the slices a little thinner or cook the slices a little longer. They were just barely underdone, but overall I like the recipe. It is another way to eat sweet potatoes, which previously I have never truly enjoyed. The bread in the pic is Anadama bread, which is a bread that uses molasses as the sweetener. I thought that it would go well with the whole Jamaican theme. I was in the mood to bake today, it was a bread that I had never made before, and I needed to step outside of my box. It turned out really well, and even The Bride liked it.
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